


i can go anywhere i want just not home

by queen_of_demons_and_hell



Series: Folklore Fanfics [3]
Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Folklore, Not Beta Read, We Die Like Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 17:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30008205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_of_demons_and_hell/pseuds/queen_of_demons_and_hell
Summary: Aelin has to fake her death and leave Terrasen. It's very angsty. Rowan knows she isn't dead and stuff.
Relationships: Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien/Rowan Whitethorn, Elide Lochan/Lorcan Salvaterre, Nesryn Faliq/Sartaq
Series: Folklore Fanfics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172012
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	i can go anywhere i want just not home

**Author's Note:**

> A fic based on My Tears Ricochet!! Highly recommend listening to the song while reading. Very angsty. So yeah.
> 
> **Not beta-read or anything we die like men here and I think I'm allergic to editing after 8pm so I can't be blamed if it's really bad

“Do it,” She spat, staring up at him - at all of them. Rowan was the only one who met her eyes, he didn’t flinch away from her, he never flinched away from her. Until recently, at least. There was a sort of comfort in knowing that she was horrible enough that Rowan Whitethorn had finally flinched.

She felt that achingly familiar lick of flame, starting at the base of her spine slowly curling up, lighting the hollows in her spine and bones, in her soul.

Something must be smoldering in her eyes because Rowan shifted, almost imperceptibly. Only being his mate and carranam did she recognize it for what it was. He’d shifted enough to have placed himself between them. Between her, Chaol, and Dorian.

With a bitter laugh, she spat again, “It’s come to this? You’re protecting them from me!” Her voice got shrill.

“Fireheart,” Rowan started but she cut him off.

“No. No. Don’t. You. Dare. Call me that.” It took all her years of training in hiding herself, of becoming other people, that allowed her to keep her voice steady.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to curl up in her massive bed, half sprawled against the comforting warmth of her husband, with Fleetfoot resting in her lap and a good book in one hand, the delicious chocolate hazelnut cake an elderly woman in town had learned to make just for her in the other. She wanted to go home.  
But home was a long way from here.

Dorian shoved forward, elbowing past Rowan, ignoring Chaol’s muttered warning, and stopped once he and Aelin were nose-to-nose.

“We didn’t want to do this.”

She just hummed, not backing away from him.

Those flames still curled, ready for her to wield.

“This is better than the alternative,” Chaol spoke up and she and Dorian both moved to look at him.

She arched a brow and schooled her face into that indifferent arrogance she knew made nearly everyone see red. “The alternative? What was the alternative to forcing me to flee my kingdom I have fought so hard to keep and fake my own death with only,” She jabbed a finger at each of them, “You three knowing the details of what happened.”

“The alternative was taking away the fake part,” Dorian said, cold water to match her own burning flame.

She started, and against her better judgment, looked at Rowan. “You were going to,” She swallowed and tried very hard to ignore the agony in his gorgeous eyes. “Kill me?”

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think anybody voted for that.” Dorian offered.

“Voted?” Her voice went shrill again and she saw Rowan twitch. “You all voted on what to do with me?”

“You couldn’t stay in Terrasen anymore, not after what you did, so yes. We voted.”

“And you three are the lucky bastards who have to force me out.”

“Force is only needed if you decide to fight us, Aelin,” Chaol said.

She ignored how pointed the words were, how they angered those festering embers.

“So Lorcan didn’t volunteer? I was sure he’d be the first to want to force me out of my own home and fake my death.”

“Nobody volunteered, Aelin. Nobody wanted this to be the way it went.”

“Hmm, well it seems someone did. Since we’re here, and all.” Her voice dropped low and she was suddenly talking only to Rowan. “Was what I did so unforgivable that you don’t love me anymore?”

He couldn’t look at her, this man, who used to look at her like the stars were born in her eyes, now couldn’t look her in the face. “I’ll always love you, Fi-” He cleared his throat, “Aelin. Don’t ever think I stopped but-” He looked like words had become too hard and merely stared at whatever his eyes were fixed on, somewhere behind her left ear.

Chaol and Dorian were both looking anywhere but at the two of them.

Looking at him in the dying sunlight filtering through the web of branches formed from ancient oak trees, the way his eyes glittered, the hard lines of him all highlighted, and his hair ruffled from the autumn wind, her resolve broke. She took a step, then another, then she was running. He caught her, swept her up, and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

It was oddly reminiscent of a time long ago, in Adarlan. That, however, was a reunion. This was a goodbye.

Tears streaked down her face and he held her closer; as if trying to further commit all of her to memory. “I’m sorry, Rowan.” She whispered.

“I know. I am too.”

She pulled away first. He wiped her tears away with painstaking gentleness and kissed her forehead, “This may not be the end.” From his tone and the way he was looking at her, he believed it as much as she did. Which is to say, this is the end. “Promise me you’ll stay alive.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Take care of Terrasen for me. They need you.”

He nodded, his hands still resting on her face, making no move to leave. “Where will you go?”

She shrugged helplessly, “Maybe I’ll bring Lillian back. I don’t know. I’ll just stay in the shadows for a few centuries, try and build a life where nobody knows me, nobody knows Terrasen.”

He nodded again and slowly dragged his hands from her face. She was the one that was ‘dying’ but he looked ready to keel over himself. He took a few unsteady steps backward and stooped to pick up a backpack they’d brought. He tossed it to her and she caught it easily, slinging it along her back.

She turned and looked at Dorian and Chaol, biting her lip. She wanted them to hurt, she wanted them to feel the betrayal she felt. Not a sting, no, she felt like she’d been stabbed. And as someone who had been stabbed many times before, she felt confident in her analogy. But they were her friends, once.

Make them hurt a voice whispered deep from inside her. She clenched her fists and felt the flames bubbling up.

Aelin. Rowan. In her head.

She breathed in deeply and nodded to them once, they nodded back. She acknowledged the pain in their eyes with not a small amount of satisfaction.

She took off sprinting into the forest and didn’t look back.

~~~~~~

They were walking back to Terrasen, they’d let Aelin off at the border.

“Rowan,” Dorian laid a hand on his arm, “Are you-”

He shrugged the young king off and shifted, taking to the skies, as far from them, from anyone, as he could get.

“We made the right decision, right?” Dorian’s voice was so strained it cut at Chaol’s heart.

“Yeah, yes. This was the right choice. The only choice.”

He nodded, but Chaol could tell the doubts lingered. As long as Aelin was out there, on her own, free but never allowed to return home, the doubts would always linger.

~~~~~~

Her knees buckled not far from where she’d taken off running from the three of them. She flew forward, throwing her hands out and scraping her palms along the rocks as slid to a stop. She tried to breathe, ragged, shaking breaths, as she tried to calm her mind. The world blacked-out around the edges and a whimper fell from her mouth. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t fucking do this.

A weak scream ripped from her throat and she dug her hands harder into the rocks, they sliced her palms open, warm blood trickling into the grass.

She tried to wrangle the fire, she tried to use the tactics Rowan had taught her what felt like lifetimes ago, but just like it had which led to her being here, she couldn’t control it.

It didn’t explode like she thought it would, it bubbled. Like lava in a volcano, it bubbled out of her, hot smoldering fire, trickling down her face like tears, tracing lines along her body like blood. It covered the grass around her and spread, her cry was futile. It burnt straight through some of the ancient oak trees, bringing them down and melting them entirely into the earth.

Despite the chaos around her, despite that first anguished cry, she knelt in the dirt. Wind ripped her hair away from her face as she burned the world around her, nobody could say Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius went out gracefully.

~~~~~~

Despite the initial burning at the border, no sign of Aelin had surfaced. He had to give her credit, the woman knew how to disappear. The thought sent an ache through him, intensifying what was already there.

He’d been like some kind of ghoul, Lorcan and Fenrys traded shifts watching over him, making sure he bathed and ate. Someone always sat at his bedside with him, waking him when the nightmares took him. Nightmares that Aelin was still held captive by Maeve. When they resurfaced, the first night his hand had shot out, seeking a warm body that wasn’t there. He’d flown into a fit of panic until someone had brought someone in. One of the women, Elide, maybe? They had calmed him enough to tell him Aelin wasn’t with Maeve. They weren’t in the war anymore. He remembered where Aelin was. That he didn’t know where Aelin was, only that he had sent her away. In some ways, that hurt worse.

Most of them had moved into the castle and would stay until most of Terrasen, until Rowan, settled enough to be left. Most of them were Lords and Ladies, however, so they alternated. One week Elide would stay at the castle, the next week Lorcan would. The same went for Aedion and Lysandra. He knew it hurt them, being separated like that, but they never once complained. Rowan hadn’t entirely been paying attention when they had decided how Aelin’s ‘death’ had happened, but they’d fabricated a story and spread it. Today was her funeral, nearly a month after she had left - since they’d made her leave - and Terrasen’s people had been in mourning ever since. They would be for a long while, but not nearly as long as Rowan would be.

He wasn’t sure what woke up, it wasn’t even dawn, but his eyes fluttered open. He oriented himself with what - who - surrounded him. Fleetfoot, that damned dog, was at his feet. She hadn’t taken Aelin’s spot, as if hoping she would be back. There was another animal asleep near the foot of the bed, on the floor, Lysandra or Fenrys, and he watched their chest slowly rise and fall and matched his own to it. His heart had been racing. Maybe that’s what woke him, an unseen nightmare.

He crept past the sleeping figure, probably Lysandra then, not as attuned to his every move like he knew Fenrys was.

He slipped out onto the balcony and was struck with the memory of the time Aelin had woken him and he had found her staring with tear-filled eyes at the Kingsflame blooming across those rolling hills.

He surveyed those same hills, the sleeping town below, and leaned forward, bracing his hands on the railing until he was close to tumbling off the edge and stayed there in silence for a long while before speaking. “Damn it Aelin!” He was nearly sobbing, he had no idea when the tears had started. “Why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you fight harder? Gods,” He broke off and slumped down, unable to speak thanks to the sobs wracking through him. “Please stay,” He nearly whimpered. “I know it’s too late but please, Fireheart, I need you. I need you.”

He fell asleep there, on the balcony, soothed by the beat of his heart. A beat that sounded suspiciously like an echo of Aelin’s fingers dancing along the pianoforte, drawing out a sound she commanded while quietly singing a lullaby she had told him her mother sang to her when she couldn’t sleep.

His eyes closed and he could’ve sworn her voice carried on the wind, that lullaby, followed by a nearly inaudible, “I love you, Rowan. I love you.”

~~~~~~

Half the time she slept in the forest like some kind of wild animal, the other half of the time she disguised herself and found some disgusting tavern to sleep in. She had no idea where she was anymore, she was just wandering aimlessly. She was currently sitting on the roof of one of said taverns. It reminded her painfully of her days as an assassin. She stared up at the stars, unblinking, the night wind was cold and stung her face but she was past caring. Up here, she took off the glamour, becoming Aelin again.

“Do you miss me, buzzard?” She asked the stars. “I hope you miss me as much as I miss you.” She shook her head and laughed angrily. “You became everything you didn’t want to, didn’t you? You bastard.” Her voice was getting louder with each word. “To whatever end? Right.” Angry tears streaked her face for what was definitely not the first time. “I’ve listened around enough that I learned my funeral is tomorrow.” She didn’t even know what she was doing anymore, besides pacing on a roof and shrieking at the sky. “Maybe I’ll stop in, I’ve always wanted to see my own funeral.” She jabbed an angry finger at a star she had deemed was Rowan’s stand-in. “I hope you make it worthy of me, you bastard. Gods, I hope you know me enough to make it as me as you can.” She blew a kiss at that star and something in her cracked, “I love you, Rowan Whitethorn. I shouldn’t, not anymore, but I do.”

She pulled her glamor back on and jumped down from the roof, landing on her feet with practiced ease. “Let’s see if I can make my own funeral, hmm?”

~~~~~~

It was as outrageous as Aelin would have wanted. Everyone was miserable, even those within the inner circle who knew what had really happened. Most everyone was here, except for all the royals within Erilea, and every other land Aelin had touched.

Music flourished from every corner, musicians from all over had come to play pieces for her, in honor of her. It was like some kind of twisted wedding, the way everyone turned when the royals entered. The leaders that Aelin had not known as personally entered first, stopping individually to give impersonal speeches about her. Then Galan entered. He knelt before the basically-shrine honoring her. “You were one of the greatest Queens this world has ever seen, cousin.” He cleared his throat, “You were so much more than all your titles give you credit for, and that’s saying a lot. You were so full of life and energy and,” A broken laugh. “Fire. You burned bright, Aelin. And now that you’re ash, we’re ash too.” He cleared his throat again and stayed kneeling next to the other leaders, murmuring words meant only for him and his cousin.

Manon entered next, she knew the truth but despite that, her eyes were rimmed an angry red. She stood next to Galan, “Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius.” She went silent for a moment before sinking to her knees. Everyone gasped. Family knelt, but other than that no leader, especially not a witch, knelt. “You-” She broke off and bowed her head, curling her hands into fists at her side.

When it was clear Manon wasn’t going to finish, Dorian entered. He knelt beside Manon (cue another gasp) his mouth moved, but it was only for him and Aelin. The goodbye he hadn’t had the chance to say in that forest.

Nesryn and Sartaq strode in, Sartaq didn’t speak, but Nesryn did. Her voice carried, unwavering. “No King or Queen is perfect, but Aelin was pretty damn close. She and I were never the closest but,” She hesitated and Sartaq reached for her hand, “She believed in me. She never looked down on me because I was human, and wasn’t in any huge position of power, and that faith in me never changed even when I became,” She gestured at her and Sartaq, at her dress, “Aelin mattered in a way that not many people have ever mattered. She will be remembered, for her fire and power, for what she’s done, but also how she has a soft spot for dogs and chocolate,” A few wet laughs, “How she loves music and theater, how kind she is to everyone.” The crowd nodded their agreement, there wasn’t a soul that wasn’t crying. “You did it. You made your mark.” She bowed her head and it was clear she was done.

Rowan was last, Goldryn in his hands. He laid in with pain-staking gentleness at her shrine. He stepped back and opened his mouth as if about to speak. His fingers fiddled with the ring on one finger. The ring Aelin had given him that he hadn’t taken off. That he would never take off. “Damn you,” He said finally. “Damn you, Aelin.” He bowed his head to hide from the crowd and someone moved, Elide. She came up to him, murmured a few quiet words, and led him to kneel next to Sartaq. She waited a few moments before returning to her spot.

The music rose as everyone knelt, heads bowed, before their dead Queen. It was ghostly, the way they knelt in total silence, besides their tears. Aelin was going to haunt everyone, for a very, very long time.

If anyone had been looking, they would have seen a female figure in the trees, slipping away as quietly and quickly as she could, tears flowing freely at the love everyone held for her.

“Goodbye,” She whispered. Well, looks like she could make a graceful disappearance after all.


End file.
